Deal, Kent
Deal is a town in Kent, England which lies on the English Channel, eight miles north-east of Dover and eight miles south of Ramsgate. It is a former fishing, mining and garrison town. Close to Deal is Walmer, a possible location for Julius Caesar's first arrival in Britain. Deal became a 'limb port' of the Cinque Ports in 1278 and grew into the busiest port in England; today it is a seaside resort, its quaint streets and houses are a reminder of its history along with many ancient buildings and monuments. In 1968, Middle Street was the first Conservation Area in Kent. The coast of France is approximately twenty-five miles from the town and is visible on clear days. The Tudor Deal Castle, commissioned by King Henry VIII, has a rose floor plan. History Deal is first mentioned as a village in the Domesday Book of 1086, where it appears as Addelam. It is referred to as Dela in 1158, and Dale in 1275. The name is the Old English dael meaning 'valley', cognate with the modern English 'dale'.Eilert Ekwall, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names, p.140. Deal developed into a port by the end of the 13th century. Sandown, Deal and Walmer castles were constructed around the town by Henry VIII to protect against foreign naval attack. In 1861 a Royal Marines Depot was established in the town. Maritime history The proximity of Deal's shoreline to the notorious Goodwin Sands has made its coastal waters a source of both shelter and danger through the history of sea travel in British waters. The Downs, the water between the town and the sands, provides a naturally sheltered anchorage. This meant that, despite the absence of a harbour, the town became a significant port (both for merchant ships and for the Royal Navy) with transit of goods and people from ship to shore conducted using smaller tender craft. Deal was, for example, visited by Nelson and was the first English soil on which James Cook set foot in 1771 on returning from his first voyage to Australia. The anchorage is still used today by international and regional shipping, though on a scale far smaller than in former times (some historical accounts report hundreds of ships being visible from the beach). In 1672, a small Naval Yard was established at Deal, providing stores and minor repair facilities. On the site of the yard there is now a building originally used as a semaphore tower linked to London, and later used as a coastguard house, then as a timeball tower, which remains today as a museum of time and communication. The Deal Maritime and Local History Museum is housed in an historic complex of light-industrial buildings in St George's Road, dating from 1803. It contains a series of displays and artefacts, narrating the town's maritime, industrial, domestic and leisure history. Boatmen By the time Dickens came to Deal it had been largely forgotten how the government of 1784, under Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, ensured that the Deal boats were all set ablaze, suspecting some of the Deal luggers of being engaged in smuggling. Pitt had awaited an opportunity that January, when the boats were all 'hoved up' on the beach on account of bad weather, to send a regiment of soldiers to smash and burn them. A naval cutter was positioned offshore to prevent any of the boatmen escaping. The boatmen's ancestors had the right, under charter, freely to import goods in return for their services as Cinque Port men in providing what had been long recognised as the sole naval defence of the realm. These men continued to risk their lives and their boats, in saving the lives of shipwreck victims. The irrepressible spirit of the Deal boatmen remained undaunted by these events throughout the Napoleonic Wars, and they continued to assert their hard-earned right to trade. From these activities news of the events unfolding in France would reach England quickly and regularly, with about 400 men making a living off Deal beach at that time. The war only made the boatmen’s efforts more profitable, so that afterwards the Government immediately turned a part of its naval blockade into a coastal blockade, which lasted from 1818 to 1831. Naval and Military The Navy Yard A Naval storehouse was built in Deal in 1672, providing for ships anchored in the Downs. In time, the establishment grew to cover some five acres of land, to the north of the castle. There was also a Victualling Yard on site. In contrast to other naval yards, there was no place for ships to dock alongside at Deal, so instead a number of small supply boats were maintained at the yard; these would be launched from the shingle beach, carrying supplies, provisions, personnel or equipment as required. The Yard closed in 1864. The barracks The Royal Marines Depot, Deal were constructed shortly after the outbreak of the French Revolution. They originally consisted of adjacent cavalry and infantry barracks (later known as South Barracks), alongside which were separate hospitals for the Army and Navy. In due course the hospitals were also turned into barracks (known as North Barracks and East Barracks respectively). From 1861 the complex served as a sizeable Depot for the Royal Marines; latterly it was known in particular for the Royal Marines School of Music, which had moved there in 1930. Lifeboats Piers The seafront at Deal has been adorned with three separate piers in the town's history. The first, built in 1838, was designed by Sir John Rennie. After its wooden structure was destroyed in an 1857 gale, it was replaced by an iron pier in 1864. A popular pleasure pier, it survived until the Second World War, when it was struck and severely damaged by a mined Dutch ship, the Nora, in January 1940. This was not the first time the pier had been hit by shipping, with previous impacts in 1873 and 1884 necessitating extensive repairs. The present pier, designed by Sir W. Halcrow & Partners, was opened on 19 November 1957 by the Duke of Edinburgh. Constructed predominantly from concrete-clad steel, it is 1026 ft (311 m) in length (a notice announces that it is the same length as the [[RMS Titanic|RMS Titanic]], but that ship was just 882 feet in length), and ends in a three-tiered pier-head, featuring a cafe, bar, lounge, and fishing decks. The lowest of the three tiers is underwater at all but the lowest part of the tidal range, and has become disused. The pier is a popular sport fishing venue. Deal's current pier is the last remaining fully intact leisure pier in Kent and is a Grade II listed building. Its structure was extensively refurbished and repaired in 1997, with work including the replacement of much of the concrete cladding on the pier's main piles. Work began in April 2008 to construct a new pier-head with a modern restaurant, with the restaurant opened in December 2008. Museums Deal has several museums; all are related to Deal's maritime history. Both Deal Castle and Walmer Castle are operated by English Heritage - Deal has a display on the events in the reign of Henry VIII that led to the invasion threat which caused its construction, along with some material on its subsequent history, whereas displays at Walmer concentrate on Walmer's post-Tudor role as the Lord Warden's residence. There is also a ruin of the third Tudor castle, Sandown Castle, in North Deal. The Deal Maritime and Local History Museum has exhibits of boats, smuggler galleys and model naval ships. It also contains extensive histories of the lifeboats as well as local parish registers. The Timeball Tower Museum, on the other hand, focuses on the importance of timekeeping for ships, and the role the building it occupies played. Notable references Diarist Samuel Pepys recorded several visits to the town, being moved on 30 April 1660 to describe it as "pitiful". Deal was notorious in the 17th century as a location for smugglers, and Daniel Defoe wrote of the town: William Cobbett passing through in September 1823 noted in his book Rural Rides: In fiction Dickens, who had visited the town, had Richard Carstone garrisoned here in Bleak House,Chapter XLV so that Woodcourt and Esther's paths can cross when Woodcourt's ship happens to anchor in the Downs at the same time as Esther and Charley are visiting Richard: Deal is the setting for local novelist George Chittenden's smuggling saga, which is set in the late 18th century when the town was a haven for criminal gangs smuggling contraband across the English Channel. In Chittenden's debut The Boy Who Led Them a child rises through the ranks to control the biggest smuggling gang on the Kent coast, fighting wars with rival gangs and revenue men at every turn. In Chittenden's next book The Boy Who Felt No Pain he takes the reader on a journey back to the dangerous coastal town of Deal, fleshing out the back story of main characters from the first novel whilst also raising some interesting new questions. In Jane Austen's Persuasion,Chapter 8 the town is mentioned as the only place where Admiral Croft's wife Sophia Croft was ever ill, as it was the only place she was ever separated from him, whilst he was patrolling the North Sea. *A renamed Deal served as the setting for the William Horwood book The Boy With No Shoes. It is also the setting for part of his earlier novel The Stonor Eagles. *It is the (renamed) setting of Frances Fyfield's crime novel Undercurrents. *It is the setting for David Donachie's book A Hanging Matter, a murder and nautical mystery. * North & South Deal were swapped round in the semi-autobiographical novel The Pier by Rayner Heppenstall. *Deal features briefly in H. G. Wells The War of the Worlds. *Deal is mentioned as the destination for a Marine recruit from Edinburgh in the novel Guns of Evening by Ronald Bassett. "What's Deal?" the recruit replies having never heard of it. *Deal is the setting for Ian Fleming's 1955 James Bond book Moonraker. Villain Hugo Drax has built his Moonraker rocket just outside Deal, where Bond has to go and investigate a murdered undercover operative. *Characters in the Aubrey-Maturin novels of Patrick O'Brian frequently stay in Deal waiting for their ship to be ordered to sea. *Horatio Hornblower (in The Commodore, by C. S. Forester) departs from Deal on his voyage to the Baltic. Deal is also the setting for the book After Dover - a short story about a serial killer travelling from Dover to Deal (by Luke Ryman). Further local references include Oxney Bottom and Ringwould. Local media Newspapers Deal has one paid for newspaper, the East Kent Mercury, published by the KM Group. Radio The local radio station for Deal is KMFM Shepway and White Cliffs Country. Deal is also served by the county-wide stations Heart, Gold and BBC Radio Kent. Deal Community Radio is an online radio station with music, interviews and information on upcoming activities at The Astor Community Theatre along with the latest news from around Kent. Sport and Leisure Deal has a Non-League football club Deal Town F.C., which plays at The Charles Sports Ground. The Rugby Club, Deal & Betteshanger Lions plays at the old RM Drill Field off Canada Rd. There is a Farmer’s Market on Wednesday which sells local produce, as well as a long-running market on Saturday. The town has an independent retail sector in the North End of Deal High Street, and a number of chains on the High Street, though there are some retail voids. The Astor Theatre in Deal offers musical performances, live theatre, exhibitions, movies, classes and clubs, and more. Deal, used to have two cinemas up until 1981, but these finally closed in the 1984 with the closure of the Cannon Classic in Queen Street and although a small cinema re-appeared in the former Cannon Classic Cinema building, that too closed in 2007. Deal's former bingo hall the Regent another art deco cinema building closed in 2008 and has been sold by the local council to reopen as a branch of Silver Screen Cinemas. As of January 2013, the building remains shuttered. Twin towns * - Saint-Omer, France * - Vlissingen, Netherlands Notable residents Comedian Norman Wisdom, writers Sean Gabb and Simon Raven, television presenter Karl Pilkington, composer John Ireland, jazz musician Dick Morrissey, and actors Charles Hawtrey, Geoff Bell, Jerry Anderson, Neil Stuke, Richard Cant, Bernard Hepton, and Jack Scanlon all lived or live in Deal. Notable people born in the town include James Arbuthnot, John Hulke, Elizabeth Carter, John Stanton Fleming Morrison, and Bruce Montague, playwright Gregory Motton. Climate The nearest UK Met Office weather station is in Dover. Deal has a temperate maritime climate, with comfortable summers and cold winters. The temperature is usually between and , but the all-time temperature range is between and . There is evidence that the sea is coldest in February; the warmest recorded February temperature was only , compared with in January. References Sources *Green, Ivan. The Book of Deal and Walmer, Barracuda Books Ltd, 1983, ISBN 0-86023-156-9 External links *Deal Town Council Category:Seaside resorts in England Category:Towns in Kent Category:Cinque ports Category:Port cities and towns of the North Sea Category:Royal Marines Band Service Category:Coastal settlements in Kent Category:Beaches of Kent Category:Dover (district) Category:Civil parishes in Kent